Thursday, August 27, 2009

Musclin' up

Starting pitcher:
M.C. O'Connor

Bengie Molina's go-ahead pinch-hit three-run homer with two outs in 8th might have been the biggest, most dramatic moment of the season. Figures it would come from the guy the organization has asked to shoulder the unofficial captaincy of the squad--the Money Man, the very personification of Veteran Savvy Clutchness and Gamerissitude--and it is particularly revealing that he was hitting for a young, healthy Ryan Garko in that spot. Ol' Boch may have cemented his rep as a gutsy, intuitive play-caller with that move, sending up the hobbling fan favorite and sitting the young buck who was supposedly brought in to give our offense a little pop. It was destined to be another frustrating loss with four freakin' hits backing up another strong start. I don't know about you, but I'm certainly glad we stuck with Jonathan Sanchez. He is showing us a lot here in the stretch run, last night he had NINE strikeouts in his 7 IP, and was in control most of the night. I'm amazed that we won with the long ball. (Juan Uribe continues to help the club--what a bargain!) Two homers accounted for all the runs, this from a team that is 29th out of 30 in the ML in that department. We picked a good time to muscle up.

3 comments:

You gotta love Benjie, especially when you watch him limp around the bases. A homer was his only option.Garko has been a disappointment, although I expected little from him.The other disappointment at this point has to be F Sanchez. He showed up with a sore knee and now he has a sore shoulder. We all really want to like him, but sheesh, is it always going to be this way with him?I'm proud of the consistency J Sanchez has been showing. He continues to maintain more Ks than IP.We just went through an entire 5 game rotation without a decision for a starter. (I think.) Too many dramatic games. Supposedly good learning experiences for da yutes.

I think the stats vs Qualls led Bochy to decide to pinch hit Molina. Garko may have never hit against Qualls. I don't remember the discussion exactly because my brain only retained Duane Kuiper's excited home run call. It is gutty decisions like that one that gets the manager a "genius" label, at least until the next one that results in a double play (see: pinch hitting Renteria for Ishikawa, Thursday, August 20).

You know what I'd really like to see? The Giants peel off about a five or six game winning streak. That would make me feel pretty good about our ability not to do a total toilet-dive in September. By the way, the Giants have a pretty fair shot at winning as many games by the end of August as they won all last year.

Minor league update:The Grizzlies were crushed by the River Cats last night, 11-3. Sadowski had an ugly line:3.2 6 9 6 3 3Posey has raised his AAA average to .301.I'm going to the game Saturday night and will take copious notes.